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Deeper Perception Made Practical

What does it mean to be spiritual, really?

Enabling comments at our online community this morning, this blog host was so impressed with your wise words, Blog-Buddies. Notably ADAM’s magnificent Comment #30 about Enlightenment.

Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to join our conversation. Seems to me, we are creating quite the Enlightenment wiki around spiritual growth that, unlike the link just provided, is not centered around Christianity.

What does spiritual growth mean for someone on a path to Householder Enlightenment?

What gave rise to this conclusion? Maybe this is a teachable moment for all of us to revisit some of our assumptions and beliefs.

What does it mean to you for a person to be considered “spiritual”?

Does spiritual growth have to include belonging to an organized religion?

What does it mean to evolve spiritually?

Here’s some context, as we explore what spirituality might really mean

I had posted a Skilled Empath Merge with a huge success story of an entrepreneur.

Evaluating what it means to grow spiritually or to “be spiritual”– well, for many reasons, a person might be curious. And not just for gossip, nor to be judgmental. You might explore whether a person is spiritual by your standards because:

You are considering study with that person to move forward on your path to Enlightenment.

You’re developing your working knowledge of good and bad, because ethics in everyday life really do matter.

So I applaud MEG for drawing attention to this very human question of “What does it mean to be a spiritual person?”

As a starting-off point for our discussion here at the blog, here is how I go about making that kind of assessment. To keep things real, let’s use Elizabeth Holmes as an example. She is, after all, a real-live person who was profiled yesterday at the blog.

What does the person say and do in objective reality?

Objective reality is really important, not something to over-interpret or discard as “An illusion.”

Elizabeth Holmes has developed technology to make lab testing more financially affordable. Maybe she has become one of the “big people” financially. However, she has earned that money in ways that help us, the “little people.”

The self-made billionaire has earned her money for doing something. Not just making money by gaming the financial system. Not through celebrity, the “Being famous for being famous” model that sometimes pays off. Nor has Elizabeth Holmes grown rich through selling products produced by sweatshop labor, like the heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. They are among the richest people in the entire world.

Now I’m not suggesting that how people make money is the only criterion for evaluating what it means to lead a spiritual life. Still, I think any honorable work that helps people goes to the head of my list for a good start towards “being spiritual.”

That group includes the guys who stop by my house twice a week to pick up the trash. When I assess whether someone is “a spiritual person,” they’re off to a good start, according to my criteria.

Doing honorable work that helps people would most definitely include the work of Elizabeth Holmes, at least based on what I know about her business.

Surface perception matters. But it doesn’t have to be all we use for making sense of life. On to making deeper perception practical!

Most of us dont develop a conscious interest in the Divine until we need it.

All that, folks, is about human life. In the case of Elizabeth Holmes, she is a young woman who has focused hard to do something that makes her successful. Something that also helps people. And not having 17 heads and 34 arms, she has had to specialize in life.

Doing some things rather than others — what’s wrong with that? It’s not wickedness. Not being spiritual bankrupt.

For one extreme example of being very much about religion and spirituality, consider this. Adolph Hitler and his pals were very public Christians. True believers and then some. According to historical scholar Jim Walker:

The German words, “Gott Mit Uns” means “God With Us” and appeared on many Nazi soldiers belt buckles during WWII. To see the buckle, click here.

Funny old Earth School! Like Hitler, though also very unlike Hitler, people in spiritual addiction can flunk at that “Doing good in the world.” They also believe they are spiritual, even among the world’s spiritual elite.

Yet the objective reality sniff test may not go so well for them. Nor a study of that person through aura reading. Oops!

So where would you look for discerning whether a person is “spiritual”?

It’s really fascinating to consider which aspects of life you think would be examined in order to assess spiritual goodness. Including aspects of life that could correspond to chakra databanks.

You name the human aspect of life. I will get as close as I can to a relevant subconscious-level chakra databank. Sound like fun?

How about commenting below? What do you think makes a spiritual person tick? Is it emotional, intellectual, physical, material, financial, or simply about personally connecting to Spiritual Source?

Or maybe spirituality is simply something that adds value to life, so that life is not SIMPLY eating and drinking and making money, finding shelter etc. So that one has a sense of ones place in the grand scheme of things.

I love your comments, Rachel! They remind me of a conversation that I had with a family member recently (which was not explicitly spiritual in nature), in which we were pondering the difference between doing an ordinary, daily task, and doing it in a way that allowed us to experience the sparkle of it.

But then gosh, does it even make sense to talk about someone as being more spiritual?

Is it like saying someone is more human than another, or more American, or more Christian, when the members of these groups themselves are all in the process of collectively defining what it means to be human, or American, or Christian?

Through the lens of reincarnation, it’s easy to make the case that everyone is spiritual: the crackhead, the ego-maniacal millionaire, the renunciate. Everyone is playing out a lifetime based on life contracts and human choices. Everyone is learning something important in their lifetime and repaying karma.

Adopting this mentality has gone a long way to helping me accept others and their choices. I used to want to save everyone around me, but now I respect that their paths are sacred, even if I perceive them to be disgusting, tragic, or silly. We’re all on the wheel karma….

I remember reading once about maxims such as honesty is the best policy. A psychiatrist was explaining that such sayings can guide us when we are lost.

Someone who lives by such received wisdom is borrowing it, but the finest wisdom comes when a person doesnt simply believe that honesty is the best policy because they have been told it, but really knows it in their bones. Like: honesty really IS the best policy.

LEO, reincarnation makes a very useful basis for the sort of belief you expressed in Comment 15.

Even more useful is directly experiencing through past-life regression what some of those lifetimes have been for YOU, the long history of your own soul.

However, it is really important to be a smart consumer of past-life regression. I recommend Soul Energy Awakening Hypnosis(R), of course, as one method that will not inadvertently trigger frozen blocks from the past but, instead, permanently remove them and add PUT IN that expresses your soul more fully, as you are at your best in this lifetime.

For any who are planning to buy yourself a really good gift for this new year, consider a session with someone trained in this distinctive form of past-life regression.

I loved the honesty and how you provided a really important teachable moment.

It is very common for people to think along the lines of, “If this person doesn’t have a strong subconscious and energetic connection to the Divine, she has lost out.” Or “She can’t possibly be spiritual.”

I think it is very important for all of us to explore this kind of thinking. Just one example, this was one of the motivators for my spending years to research and write Magnetize Money with Energetic Literacy.

Being on a householder path to Enlightenment makes considerations like this very tricky. Very practical. Absolutely necessary.

MEG, when I read your comment that sparked the continued conversation, my thought was that Elizabeth Holmes is being guided in some way, but just isnt necessarily aware of it and seemingly not focused on exploring the nature of such connections. Shes way too busy running that business.

Thats my take. I dont mean it in any kind of snarky way, but I actually dont really think along the lines of who is spiritual and who isnt. It doesnt make much sense to me to focus too much on that label.

Especially given the way New Age-y terms have been tossed around in recent years.

After much wrangling, I got my insurance company to pay for the tests. As I sorted out the billing, I realized that I was being charged and had paid 5 times the price the insurance paid for a simple blood test.

I think being spiritual is when one has faith and lives his life in truth. Live your life being honest and always doing the right thing. Love and respect yourself and others. Someone who cares about all living creatures and wouldn’t hurt anyone intentionally. Someone who is a seeker, wants to find answers and evolve to something even better. Someone who is searching for peace. Looks within for answers and knows there is something greater.. One who is in search of their life purpose.. someone who is open minded. Spirituality is something very deep within..

Being spiritual has nothing to do with religion in my opinion. Religious dogma is all man made rules that people follow.. I find religion to teach lies, hate and separation.

I still really dislike the word spiritual. It makes me think of the 19th century and dubious psychics. I also really dont know what it means to be spiritual but these days I do absolutely love god and thats wonderful so I suppose I know a little more about it than I used to.

Mostly for me its just about having an open heart and living my ordinary life. Its nice to be connected to happiness and I trust that. Thats as deep as it goes for me, I feel love and that is wonderful. The process, if I can call it that, is that I become more loving and over time clean up my less desirable traits and more fully enjoy the parts of me that are lovely.

Im still roughly hewn in some areas so theres definitely a lot I dont know, but its nice to know I am somewhat spiritual and understand a little of what it is to be connected to god.

I’m not sure this is the right place for it, but I just read an interesting article about philosophers arguing over what consciousness is that a) reminded me of the interesting discussion here about what it means to be spiritual and b) made me want desperately to know that someone somewhere is going to do scientific studies of Rosetree Energy Spirituality.

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